The ghost in the machine

The holiday season always evokes that feeling of sparkle and adventure in me. While my household no longer holds the children who come and go, I look forward to the time when I can host my friends and families in my home or within the festiveness of the city. Being an empty nester has allowed me to grow as an explorer, becoming brave enough to leave my cozy home base during the darker season to engage the world around me with those whom I hold dear. Mindfulness for me during this season of sentimentality is about really seeing the people I’m with, relishing the moment, and helping to create that joy in all we are during this time.

So it was my holiday endeavor to share with my children my memories of days gone past in a way that conveyed the stories they were too young to remember. Photographs presented still life moments of special times, but on video I captured first words, first steps, and first missing teeth. Holidays and birthdays were recorded in documentarian style, knowing even back then that these days would become self-evident in the journey my children were taking. Giddy in my excitement of receiving the final product of this Christmas endeavor, I also expected a trip down memory lane with the extra features of this conversion. Among the multitude of recordings I had provided were mystery cartons and boxes I had never viewed. It was unclear how far back this digital journey would take me.

My goal was to share our family story with the next generations. Would these cannisters of celluloid give my family a sense of history like old Polaroids never could? I clicked on the first icon, seeing a 1951 parade and then the Rose Bowl football game. Numerous captured moments of Central California history, of which John Steinbeck might even be proud. Grainy, silent moments in the time of my family’s past filled my screen. As I watched, I saw the entrance of a young California rancher and his wife, who was dressed in a starched blouse and full skirt. As the camera set on a tall, slim, dark haired beauty of a girl, maybe 14 years old, I stopped because I was looking at a reflection of myself. My mother had appeared in frame, in a setting that took me back to my childhood. The setting of my favorite Christmas memories. This was my mother, smiling, walking, and laughing in her childhood home.

Because my daughters would grow up not seeing my side of the family very often, I wove the fondest of my childhood memories into their daily course of living. Tales of the ranch, the sprawling patio on which my sister and I rollerskated, along the midcentury splendour of Christmas in California with Grammy and Granddad likely fell short on the ears of little girls. But now, there was video to back every story I’d told them.

This shift in my personal timeline stopped me in my tracks. It was like seeing myself, but not myself, filmed in a family story I knew little about. It was like seeing a ghost – the ghost in this machine was forcing me to rewrite everything I knew about my early life. How could there be so much I did not know about my mother and who would eventually become my father?

Seeing my young mother with her grandparents and cousins and little brother camping among the 1950s Sequoias expanded my family story in a way nothing else could. Like bellows on a fire, this richness of my ancestry had blown life into my identity in a way only personal history could. Like that grandfather telling that same story over and over at the dinner table, I now had added depth of who I was and from whence I came to the mother…to the person I’d become for my children. The life I had crafted from the experiences as I remembered them became more layered, more vibrant with each roll of film I viewed. Mindful of my past but remembering to live in my moments, I realized that these digital ghosts did not haunt my present, but made it richer. I now approach the new year with a confidence that is grounded, like the roots of those Sequoias, in the foundation of our generations reaching for the skies as I grow.